Sayed Hassan Hussaini (Akhlaq)

Sayed Hassan Hussaini (Akhlaq)

Sayed Hassan Hussaini (Akhlaq)

Ph.D.

Islamic studies and Philosophy

Professorial Lecturer


School: Columbian College of Arts and Sciences

Department: Religion

Contact:

Sayed Hassan Hussaini (Akhlaq) teaches for the MA program in Islamic Studies at George Washington University. His courses focus on various aspects of Shi‘ite Islam, including political thought, philosophy, mysticism, and law. His research and teaching areas encompass Islamic studies, philosophy of religion, comparative philosophy, ethics, modernization and critical theory, inter and intra-religious dialogues, and religion and environment.

Akhlaq previously served as a Visiting Scholar at Catholic University of America (2012-2017), George Washington University (2013-2016), Princeton University (2017), and Boston University (2017-2018). Outside of GW, he is a member of the Board of Directors for American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies and teaches Philosophy, Ethics, Business Ethics, Biomedical Ethics, and Critical Thinking at Marymount University and Coppin State University.

A native of Afghanistan, Akhlaq obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Allameh Tabataba'i University (Tehran, Iran) in 2009. He also graduated in Islamic Classical Studies (kharij-i fiqh wa usual) from Hawza Ilmiya Khurasan (Mashhad, Iran, 2009). Before relocating to the USA, he taught various subjects, including Comparative Philosophy and Theology, History of Philosophy, Peripatetic Philosophy, Transcendental Philosophy, Sufism, Comparative Religion, Islamic Theology, and Current Theologies in Islam, at Iranian universities such as Al-Mustafa International University (2006-2010) and Payam-e Noor (2008-2010).


  1. Exiled Scholars in Western Academia: Reflections on the Paradox of Inclusion and Exclusion (Palgrave Macmillan, in press)
  2. The Making of Shia Ayatollahs (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) Intellectual and Spiritual Debates in Islam (Cluj University Press, 2023)
  3. The Etiquette Guidelines of Critical Thinking “Adab-e DurustAndishi”, (Kabul: Maqsodi publisher and Roya Institute for Global Justice, 2023)
  4. From the Balkh Tavern to the Weimar Firetemple, (Mazar-e Sharif: Khane Mawlana, 2021)
  5. A Collection of Philosophical Meditations: Allameh Abdullah Samandar Ghuryani, Sayed Hassan Akhlaq (Ed.), (Kabul: Amiri, 2019)
  6. The Sacred and the Secular: Complementary and/or Conflictual? Co-edited with John P. Hogan, (Washington D.C.: CRVP, 2017)
  7. From the Tradition of Balkh to the Modernity of Paris (Kabul: Nebras Organization and Saied Publication House, 2010)
  8. The Enlightenment Tradition in Islam and the West (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 2009)
  9. Philosophical Discourse between Islam and the West (Qum; Al-Mustafa International University, Iran, 2008)
  10. From Mawlana (Rumi) to Nietzsche (Qum, Soluke-e Javan, Iran, 2007)
See Professor Akhlaq's curriculum vitae for a complete list of articles, presentations, news and media